


schutzengel

by budgeridoo



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Bittersweet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:57:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/budgeridoo/pseuds/budgeridoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Germany has a lot of pet names for Veneziano, but there's one that he doesn't use aloud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	schutzengel

There is one name Ludwig calls Feliciano that Feliciano doesn't know, because he doesn't say it aloud.

Feliciano knows  _liebling_  (most common in the mornings, muttered against an unshaven jaw or given with a cup of hot coffee) and  _Schatzi_  and  _Süßer_ (usually during the day, phone calls and quick lunches and once quite memorably in front of the Chancellor before Ludwig could catch himself), Felichen and just plain Feliciano and 'Ciano (for public), and  _Spatzi_  or  _Mausi_  (usually Ludwig's being silly when he says that, but he does mean it—Feliciano is small, even if he denies it and stands on tiptoes in official photographs, and quick and inquisitive), and  _Schön_  (mostly in bed or kind of tipsy, and honestly Ludwig feels like he should say it more often)—all these, Feliciano knows Ludwig calls him, and he chuckles and calls Ludwig  _tesoro, amato, bello_  in return.

He doesn't know, because Ludwig doesn't say it aloud,  _Engel_.

Ludwig does call him  _Engel_  in his head, during the quiet soft moments he never thought someone like him would ever know, because it is because of Feliciano that he knows them and he would never want another.

Because Feliciano had stayed by his side at the worst, the lowest he'd ever fallen and that had been so unimaginably low and without Feliciano there—Ludwig knows he would have never been able to pull through without Feliciano there.

Because Feliciano is beautiful in his doe-eyed, lean, runner's-body way, and terrible when he absolutely has to be, and strange and kind and not unknowable but unfathomable (and he's missing the holy fire, but he's warm).

Because Feliciano saved him from becoming cold and withdrawn, saved him from cracking apart and shattering, took Ludwig's hands and guided him and let him cry but held him through it—

Because when it first hit Ludwig, really hit him that when Feliciano said  _I love you, I'm in love with you_  and returned his kisses that he  _meant_  it, one day while he was just putting away the butter, it was like the time Gilbert had taken him to a cathedral in France when he was small and they had been walking down the nave and then the sun had come out and shone through the stained glass and everything was light and color, stunning—

Because sometimes it hits Ludwig that the strange, soft-edged, bright-burning love he carries inside himself for Feliciano cannot be entirely earthly, not when Feliciano reciprocates it in the same way, not when the way Feliciano nuzzles into Ludwig's chest in his sleep or hums when he cooks makes his heart constrict sometimes with sheer  _how_ —

And Feliciano is  _liebling, Schatzi, Süßer, Felichen, Spatzi, Mausi, Schön_ , but most of all he is  _Engel_ , and maybe one day Ludwig will even tell him so.

**Author's Note:**

> liebling: darling; Schatzi: treasure; Süßer: sweetheart/sweetie; Felichen: diminutive of Feli; Spatzi: little sparrow; Mausi: mouse; Schön: beautiful; Engel: angel (schutzengel: guardian angel)
> 
> tesoro: treasure; amato: beloved; bello: handsome


End file.
